There are many graphics programs on the market and I have
used a number of them including Paint Shop Pro (http://www.jasc.com/psp6.html),
The Print Shop (http://www.broderbund.com/print.html),
LivePix (http://www.livepix.com/),
PhotoDeluxe (http://www.adobe.com/products/photodeluxe/),
and MS Home Publishing (http://www.microsoft.com/insider/homepublishing/default.htm).
All of these programs work well and display many graphic formats
but many times I find I just need to display a graphic file quickly
and maybe make a few tweaks. I have just the answer for such
a situation. It is a very fast 32 bit image viewer/converter
program for Win9x/NT and Windows 2000 that in its basic form
requires no DLLs or Runtime Libraries. The amazing part is this
program also does a number of the things the full featured programs
do and it comes as a very small executable (EXE) file. The download
size is only 479 KB. The best part is it's Freeware for private,
non-commercial use (that means at home). If you don't own a full
featured graphics program because you don't do much with graphics,
this may be all you need. A word of caution. This program allows
viewing of existing graphic files and some modification to them.
This is not a draw or paint program. There is no set of drawing
instruments or paint brushes.

The program is called IrfanView and it is available
at http://softwarecenter.net/irfanview
or http://members.home.com/rsimmons/irfanview/.
You can also find it by doing a search on "IrfanView"
in the ZDNet Software Library (http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/).
IrfanView is written by Irfan Skiljan, a student at the Vienna
University of Technology in Austria. The program apparently has
been around since June 1996 but I was unaware of it until now.
Just another example of how really big the web is. (I heard one
estimate that there were 800 million pages on the web and even
the best of the search engines could only find 30% of the pages.)
Irfan says he received over 14,000 e-mail messages thanking and
congratulating him on his program in the first two and a half
years since IrfanView hit the Net.

IrfanView is a compact, easy to use image viewer but it also
allows for direct image editing to produce a variety of effects.
I was truly surprised by the amount of capabilities packed into
this program. You can crop, resize/resample (with a variety of
filters for resample enlarging), rotate, flip, count colors used,
increase/decrease color depth, convert to grayscale, convert
to negative image, sharpen, swap colors, etc. Especially handy
for photo editing is the capability to enhance colors by adjusting
brightness, contrast, Gamma correction, and the red/green/blue
color balance. You can compare the new image to your original
in good-sized preview screens before applying the changes. In
the past, I have found the preview screens on some commercial
programs are so small it is sometimes hard to see the effect
of your change, especially if it is subtle.

IrfanView supports over 35 graphic formats including all of
the most popular like BMP, JPG, GIF, and TIF. The support for
the not-so-often used formats is what really comes in handy.
For example you can drag and drop files with the ICO extension
into IrfanView. ICO is the extension for all those little pictures
(32 x 32 pixels) or icons you see on your desktop. If you want
to see what's on your computer, just go to "Find / Files
or Folders" from the Start button. In the "Named:"
window type in *.ico and press "Find Now". Drag and
drop any of those resulting ICO files into IrfanView for viewing
or editing.

Another extension I have occasion to use is CLP. This is the
extension Windows Clipboard uses for saving files. In the past
I used Paint Shop Pro to view, edit, and convert CLP files to
a JPG or GIF for publishing on the web and to a TIF file for
publishing in the PC Journal. Now I can also use IrfanView. Similarly,
IrfanView allows you to view PSP files which is an extension
used for saving Paint Shop Pro files.

This program offers scan (TWAIN) support. It worked perfect
with my Visioneer Paperport 3000 scanner. First I clicked on
"Select TWAIN Source" in the File menu and selected
my scanner in the popup window. Next I clicked on "Acquire"
in the File menu and a dialog box said it was testing and connecting
my scanner. With that up pops my Paperport Scan Manager software
and I'm ready to go. I scanned an image and it was placed directly
into IrfanView ready for editing and saving. IrfanView even supports
batch scanning.

There is more. You can view the animated GIFs which are found
all over the Internet. In addition to the graphic formats, IrfanView
supports video (AVI, MPG/MPEG, Apple QuickTime: MOV) and audio
formats (WAV, AIF, AU/SND, MID/RMI, RA, MP3). IrfanView is also
an audio CD player.

You want more! IrfanView will do thumbnails of all the graphics
you have in a directory. Or you can view all those pictures with
the slideshow feature. It has a print option and will extract
icons from EXE/DLLs. You can also have hotkeys and command line
options. Maybe you would like batch conversion or a screen capture
feature. IrfanView has it. Conversion of an image into Windows
Wallpaper is included. There seems to be no end to this great
program.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that IrfanView has
a very thorough and complete Help file. I strongly urge you to
read it. If you are like I am, you will probably jump right into
using the program. Doing so without reading the Help file will
cause you to miss some of the more subtle features of this program.
For example selecting "Setup" under "Effects"
will allow you to vary the parameters of certain effects such
as Sharpen, 3D Button, Explosion, Fine Rotation, etc. Also be
sure to read the Help file about "Properties" and "Capture"
(located on the Options menu).

Above I mentioned the RA (Real Audio) and MP3 extensions.
These, as well as several other extensions, require you to download
plugins. You can download the plugins individually or as a zip
file of all IrfanView plugins at http://members.home.com/rsimmons/irfanview/plugins.html.
There are currently 9 plugins available for things like Filter
Factory 8BF files (Photoshop plugins), Kodak Digital Camera (KDC)
files, Kodak PhotoCD (PCD) files, Real Audio (RA) files, MP3
files, FlashPix (FPX) files, etc. The all_plugins.zip file is
only 936 KB. All that is required to install the plugins is to
create a new subdirectory under the IrfanView directory and name
it "PlugIns". Then unzip your downloaded file and copy
the plugin DLLs into the "PlugIns" directory.

The all_plugins.zip download is well worth it for the additional
capability it gives you. In addition to being able to play the
popular MP3 files and Real Audio files you can now use Filter
Factory 8BF files for additional image effects. First load an
image into IrfanView. Next select "Filter Factory"
from the Image / Effects menu. A new window will pop up showing
three filter groups (Andrew's Filters 29, AFH, and Krusty's FX
Vol 3 {tools}) on the left side. These are included samples.
Clicking on any of these names will cause its associated filter
to appear in a window on the right side. You will already be
seeing your loaded image in a preview window at the top right.
Clicking on the filter name will apply the default values to
filter slider parameters which now appear. You can adjust the
sliders as you see fit and the preview image will change accordingly.
Click on the "Apply to image" button to finalize your
change.

I especially like the "RedBlue 3D Maker 1.0" filter
associated with the third filter group. This filter lets you
create 3D images which you can view with anaglyph (red/blue)
glasses. At the right is a sample of some 3D art I created using
only IrfanView. I opened multiple copies of IrfanView on my Desktop
and selected "Create new image" and "Add Text".
I then did a little cut and paste editing. The small graphics
are from the Webdings font I found on my hard drive. If you want
to get into this 3D stuff go to the AltaVista Search Engine
(http://www.altavista.com/)
and type in "anaglyph". I got a return of 4,994 pages
found. For a quick sample try Anaglyph stereo at http://www.studio3d.com/pages/anaglyph.html
or Stereo Images - 3-D Gallery at http://www.3d-web.com/gallery.htm.
Also checkout Mars in 3D at http://www.rainbowsymphony.com/mars3d.html.
If you don't have the red/blue glasses to enjoy all these cool
3D pics, that site will send you a free pair.

To experiment with more filters go to PC Resources for Photoshop
(http://www.netins.net/showcase/wolf359/adobepc.htm).
Here you can find more than 1500 Photoshop filters. Steve Fisher
has created a huge site with over 175 pages so it may take a
bit of searching to find what you want. You will need another
program for converting downloaded Filter Factory (FFL) files
to the 8BF files IrfanView uses. The program is called Plugin
Commander and is available from Plugin Com HQ at http://pico.i-us.com/.
The Light Edition is Freeware. Note also that IrfanView cannot
read original Photoshop 8BF files, only 8BF files created with
Filter Factory.

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